Engine liter size vs horsepower vs torque?

[NathanL]

I can't believe you ran out of diesel in Austin...come on seriously?

I don't know if I've ever pulled into a station in the last 25 years that didn't sell diesel and that includes trips pretty often to Austin where my girlfriend lives (who lives in an area where she takes public transportion everywhere and even there I just pull in and fuel up on diesel). That includes highway and in town across the southeast and yearly trips out to the mountain west. That's not an exxageration. The only "drawback" to a diesel at the gas station is they might have 24 bays and diesel at 1 and have 1 customer in a buttbeater gas car and he will park in the diesel bay and block 3 trucks from getting diesel.

Even my mom drives a diesel truck and I've never heard her say she had a problem pulling in and getting diesel. I've never even fathomed having to look for it.

The 1 ton diesel is damn near the state vehicle of TX, even in metro areas.

The great thing about truck diesels (no experience with the smaller car diesels) is you get 19mpg with nothing back there and then you hook up a 25' trailer and you get 19mpg and then you hook up a 21' boat and get 19mpg and then hook up a 30' flatbed full of hay and you drop down to 18mpg.

Incredible overkill for most trailers that are shown/built on this site.

[NathanL]

Slowcowboy. glad to death in this high gas prices that I do NOT own a desil.

Funny I own both and the diesel works out cheaper on the highway even before I start pulling even with the 0.50/gallon price difference because of the difference in mileage.

My 3/4 ton Ford diesel gets 6 mpg better mileage when pulling 5,000 pounds than my 1/2 ton Chevy gets with no trailer at all. Doesn't take many highway miles to overcome that 0.50/gallon difference right now.

Start towing with the gas engine and it goes down even faster in mileage than the diesel by leaps and bounds. Of course newer diesel trucks don't get the mileage of the older ones (I have a 2000 and can get between 18-19mpg all day long even when loaded) thanks to new EPA regulations.

I have a shop truck 1 ton gas truck that gets about 7mpg when pulling the same weight as my 3/4 ton diesel. Would you rather save 0.50/gallon or get nearly 3x the mileage?

Back to the original topic in Europe small diesels are very popular and get 50mpg in small cars and light trucks. However they will never be imported to the US due to current EPA regualations, which is also the reason why when you compare top mileage cars from 20 years ago (such as the Honda CRX etc...) the new ones are slightly lower even with 20 years of technology in between.

[Gary and Cheri]

Back to the original topic in Europe small diesels are very popular and get 50mpg in small cars and light trucks. However they will never be imported to the US due to current EPA regualations, which is also the reason why when you compare top mileage cars from 20 years ago (such as the Honda CRX etc...) the new ones are slightly lower even with 20 years of technology in between.

I drive a 2009 diesel VW Jetta sportwagon. Right now Mercedes and VW have the only 50 state certified auto diesels. They have to be certified for pollution.

Mitsubishi and Honda are both expected to be out with diesels in the next couple of years and I'm sure several others. EPA rules are not the reason they are not here in large amounts, but rather auto manufacturers feel Americans will not buy them. That is changing.

Gary

[NathanL]

EPA rules are not the reason they are not here in large amounts, but rather auto manufacturers feel Americans will not buy them. That is changing.Gary

The most popular truck in the world - the Toyota Hilux can't be imported to the US as is because it won't pass EPA regulations.

You can take a car from Europe that gets 65mpg that is much higher mileage than most any combustion driven vehicle in the US and it won't pass EPA/CAFE standards regulations for emissions in the US. Auto makers would push them more in the US if they could import them without changes.

[asianflava]

Out of Diesel in Austin? I lived there from 97 to 08 and never heard of that. The crew cab dually is the Texas Cadillac, you see them all over the place. You can't count to 10 without seeing a pickup (diesel or otherwise) on the road.

Back in the mid 70's, we took a cross country road trip in my dad's Mercedes Diesel. Started in VA, went to Tampa, Dallas, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Chicago, then back to VA. Never had a problem finding it, of course we saw a lot of truck stops along the way.

If auto makers really wanted to make efficient hybrids, they'd use a diesel engine instead of a gas one.

[angib]

If auto makers really wanted to make efficient hybrids, they'd use a diesel engine instead of a gas one.

Making a diesel into a hybrid does not offer the same benefits as with gas, as the part-load efficiency of the diesel is so good anyway. The gas hybrid allows a smaller, more efficient gas engine to be used because the electric motor makes up the power shortage.

Peugeot has just introduced the first diesel hybrid in Yurp and it uses two completely separate drivetrains (I think some Lexi do the same?) with the rear wheels driven by the electric motor. Because the front diesel engine has a stop/start facility (it cuts out when stationary) the car can run as a pure electric-only in stop-and-go traffic.

http://www.peugeot.co.uk/vehicles/peugeot-car-range/peugeot-3008-hybrid4

74mpg sounds good (though that's 'only' 62mpg in US gallons) but the hybrid version is $5-7,000 extra.

[Gary and Cheri]

Heres the future car I want:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/mi ... el-hybrid/

Note there are links to future Mercedes and VW diesel hybrids after the article on the Evo. I'll take 70+ mpg in a car that will go 0-100kph (roughly 60 mph) in 5 seconds, any day.

170 mpg in a VW that may be here in as little as 4 years is mind boggling also.

Gary

[ATXKJ]

VW hybrid diesel 69.9 mpg
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2008/03/revealed-volksw/

my Diesel Liberty cost/mile is consistently ~20% less than a comparable Gas Liberty - and about 50% less than the FJ80 I traded in.

and if I go for the GDE turbo upgrade - they've dyno'ed it at 400 ft/lbs of torque. stock is only 295 ft/lbs

I've driven from Austin, Tx to Vancouver Ca - and the only place I had problems finding diesel (or any gas/fuel stations at all) was coming back down the Pacific highway in California (National parks and Indian reservations)

[Gary and Cheri]

When we drove out to IRG, this past summer, we always filled up as the diesel Jetta hit half a tank. Really didn't need to as I never had a problem finding it.

I don't think diesel is going to take off in the USA like it did in europe. Not because diesel is hard to find or worse that a gas car, but rather because there is so much new technology coming and coming soon. Say what you want about the current president, but moving corperate milage up to 35.5 by 20016 has spurred alot of reseach that the high price of gas never did.

Gary

[NathanL]

When we drove out to IRG, this past summer, we always filled up as the diesel Jetta hit half a tank. Really didn't need to as I never had a problem finding it.

I don't think diesel is going to take off in the USA like it did in europe. Not because diesel is hard to find or worse that a gas car, but rather because there is so much new technology coming and coming soon. Say what you want about the current president, but moving corperate milage up to 35.5 by 20016 has spurred alot of reseach that the high price of gas never did.

Gary

Complete and utter BS.

11 years ago you could walk into a Ford dealership and buy a 3/4 or 1 ton diesel truck that got 20mpg.

Now the best you can buy at a Ford dealership is a diesel that gets around 13mpg in the same size truck AND requires you to buy urea based fluids to be added and injected into the exhaust to meet new EPA regulations.

Ford didn't forget how to make a fuel effecient diesel. They changed the EPA regulations. I'm sure Ford would love to be able to sell diesel trucks that get 20mpg again.

If we wanted vehicles that got better mileage we could do it overnight - especially on the heavy end.

No different than if you look up the mileage of a Honda CRX (using the adjusted figures to meet the new standards of mileage ratings) it still outperforms the new cars sold in the US today. It's not about mileage.

[eamarquardt]

It's not about mileage.

I don't know, one way or the other, about the mileage claims of yore, but I do kinda like going outside and being able to breath the air w/o getting sick! In the 60's here, during the summer, you could rarely see very far at all and at the end of a busy day you'd be so sick from breathing the air if you took a deep breath you'd nearly die coughing! Now, nearly every summer day (summers are the worst here for visible air pollution), you can see all the way across the San Fernando Valley and breath the air w/o getting sick. I like it!

During Ghostbusters II (1989), Bill Murray's character (Peter Venkman) mocks a ghost warlord with this statement: "You know, I have met some dumb blondes in my life, but you take the taco, pal! Only a Carpathian would come back to life now and choose New York! Tasty pick, bonehead! If you had brain one in that huge melon on top of your neck, you would be living the sweet life out in Southern California's beautiful San Fernando Valley!"

Cheers,

Gus

[flygal6]

Ok I just had to chime in again since this thread took a turn somewhere a ways back.......but since we are here for all you HP, torque, diesel, clean air, power addicts, Please check out this link. I really believe this might be something we will be seeing over the next couple years which will forever change the compression engine. I think it may be the biggest compression engine advancement in close to a century.

http://www.scuderigroup.com/

Enjoy!

Carol